Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [106]
“Hard to believe we’re in the same county,” the detective commented. “How far are we going?”
“It’s about seventy miles to the fire station. That’s where the post office and the library is, too. I’m hoping someone there will give us an address.”
We passed a huge sun-faded billboard. He slowed down and read out loud, “WELCOME TO MARIPOSA VALLEY—2 1/2-ACRE PLOTS—GOLF COURSE, POOLS, SHOPPING CENTER, GOOD SCHOOLS—TOMORROW’S PLANNED COMMUNITY TODAY.” He glanced over at me. “What is this place?”
“That sign is almost as old as me. Back in the early sixties Mariposa Valley was apparently being advertised as the up-and-coming place to buy property. There were twenty-five thousand acres to be sold, as the sign said, in two-and-a-half-acre plots, and a whole town was going to be built. They wanted to name it Paradise Valley, but I think that name was already taken. Anyway, except for some die-hard desert rats of the human variety, the only things that prosper out here now are a lot of mule deer, lizards, coyotes, sandhill cranes, and the occasional rattler. The only time it really gets crowded is when the bird-watchers flock out here to add to their life lists.”
“What happened to the developer’s great plan?”
I reached for my purse and dug around for a rubberband. This time of year out here, it would probably get close to ninety, and the sun coming in the window was already turning my thick hair into an uncomfortable blanket on my neck. “It was missing one important element—water.” I zipped up my purse, irritated because I spend a fortune buying those fabric-covered hair scrunchies, yet never seemed to have one when I needed it. “You have a rubberband or a piece of string or something?”
“Check the glove compartment.”
I opened it, and next to the neat black leather map holder was a bright pink Barbie scrunchy. Good enough. I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and turned to stare out the window. “It shouldn’t be real hard to find her. I don’t imagine there’s more than a couple of hundred people who live out here these days.”
“Then maybe we can get this cleared up today.”
“I sure hope so,” I said.
We passed only one other vehicle in over an hour, a San Celina Sourdough Bakery truck. Except for a couple of wind-blasted farmhouses, miles of black sage, manzanita, and chaparral, and a cluster of rusty combines laced with shiny-feathered crows, we could have been driving on Mars. Every once in a while we passed an abandoned car skeleton, bleached almost colorless by the harsh, prairie elements, squatting among the grasses—a twentieth-century reminder of nature’s uncompromising power. The desolation out here had always slightly unnerved something deep inside me and though I’d eat a plateful of hay before admitting it, I was glad for Detective Hudson’s presence and especially the gun underneath his tweed cowboy jacket.
“We’re almost there,” I said when we passed by the closed Butterfly Cafe and the graffiti-decorated, abandoned motel. I pointed to our right at a group of buildings about a mile away.
Outside the combination fire station/community building a single person stood watering a struggling section of lawn. We pulled into the parking lot next to the only other car, a tan Toyota pickup. I was right about the temperature. The hot and dusty air hit us with a slap when we stepped out of his air-conditioned truck. The person watering, a tall, proud-looking Latina dressed in engineer-striped overalls and a white tank top, watched us curiously.